A cafe and Christmas duty.

We walk past the Hearth Cafe all the time, it's right down the street so we decided to try it out. I've looked up reviews before and everyone raves about the sweets and the drinks. We were idiots to try the food.




It's right on the seawall so the location is nice and now that it's cooled down it's perfect eating outside weather.

Thomas took this picture, I thought it was pretty artsy, lol.

We ordered Mexican dip....avocado and mayo with some tomato on top is not mexican dip. The Okinawan sweet potato chips were pretty good though.

We also got taco rice. It was about three times the cost of the taco rice we love from Gori's and not anywhere near as good. We should have known better than to order "street food" from a "fancy" place. Although all hope isn't lost and we might go back to try dessert because true to reviews my margarita was delicious.
I love having so many little hole in the wall places to explore in the neighborhood.

Other than that we've just been hanging out at home. We bought a bubble kit that has provided tons of entertainment because Thomas can blow the bubbles himself.

Josh made T some leftover smoothie popsicles, he chowed down on a few this morning. He's refusing to eat pretty much everything lately so that made me happy.




I haven't posted many videos lately so that's for my parents. Enjoy!


Josh called today to let me know he got scheduled to stand duty on Christmas day. At first I was pissed. I'm not going to lie. Why can't a single person with no kids take duty that day? Why does Josh always have duty on weekends or holidays?

Oh now I remember, because if he doesn't go to work things don't get done. He takes on too much and his superiors know he'll get it done so they pile more on. I'm proud....but also sort of mad.

Now I'm over it. At least I have a husband. A loving, funny, non deployed at the moment husband. A healthy baby. Money for gifts we don't need. At least now I have an adult reason to celebrate a day early.

So on and so forth.

Off to the park...

Okinawa Living is a magazine we read every month (mostly because it's free) and last month they did an article on some of the playgrounds here. We are going to try and check them all out before we go.





This was a dangerous park. It was also totally awesome! We won't be back for at least a year, if not two though. Thomas has no fear and just wants to go straight to the top. Nevermind that about 5 feet from either side of the structure is a steep hill just waiting for children to fall down.

We only stayed for 30-40 minutes. Thomas was refusing to walk or listen when we tried to keep him from dying. That seems to be a trend lately.

Home again, with his choo choos.

Happy day

It was my day to sleep in so I rolled out of bed around 10 today. I didn't expect to wake up to a clean house. I believe the first words out of my mouth this morning were "Holy shit".

I walked through every room and they were ALL clean. He rearranged my bath products (in height order). He organized the mountain of his clothes that are usually all over the place. Dishes and laundry....done. He even swept the balconies. That was when I realized the boys weren't home, I looked outside and could see them halfway to the park.

I think Josh is going for husband/daddy of the year award.

That set in some wife/mommy guilt so I got the crockpot going with our backup ham and went to meet them at the park. After we got home we finished all the rest of the cleaning together.

This isn't very exciting for anyone to read about but....it made my day.





Thomas, enjoying his freshly cleaned room.

Tropical Beach and park

We went to Tropical Beach today in Ginowan. There is a huge fountain and manmade streams that are usually full of carp and turtles to feed....but they were empty today. So bummed. Not a big deal though because there is still a playground and some walking paths.




I took some video but it was crazy windy so they're pretty useless. The waves were the highest we've ever seen them, so that was cool.





Thomas was grumpy through 80% of the trip so we didn't stay long.


Apparently we are the meanest parents ever because we didn't let him climb walls to his death.



Then we made the mistake of going to the BX for boring things that could totally have waited until after Black Friday was over. The Coach purse section looked about one snarky look away from a riot breaking out. I'd rather pay the 20% discount than deal with all that nonsense.

I need to go make dinner now.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving did not start off well. We all overslept. Thomas was going for his next tantrum record. He refused to nap...so on and blah blah.

We got over it pretty quickly. The Nunez family was hosting Thanksgiving this year. I loved going somewhere else for the holiday this year. So nice to not have to stress about it. I made my stuffed tomatoes that I make every year and I'll admit it pretty much made my day that everyone loved them.


We had a great time, just chatting and eating. Thomas had a ball playing near the other kids. He is still a baby to them so he's "stupid" or "gross". Thankfully T was oblivious to that.
See? In the same room... but not quite involved, lol. He's a weird child.

This is Julia, she and her husband are wonderful hosts and have always made us feel welcome from the first time they invited us over.

She also always seems to be the one willing to take a family picture of us.


I'm thankful for so many things this year, but the most important thing is that I've learned (finally) that I can choose to be happy. We may have had a bad morning but we got in the car and I said "I'm not going to be pissy over there" and I wasn't, and I had a damn good time.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

I didn't sleep well last night.

I haven't blogged. I got a migraine. I've never had one before....and don't really want to ever have one again.

The Korea's are at it again...and that terrifies me. I don't want any shenanigans going on so close to us. I do live right by the flightline...they bomb flightlines right???

Josh has a field op next month, just a week long but I'm bummed about it. I don't think it will matter how long he's in the military it will always be hard to let him walk out the door. The fact that Thomas will be asking "Where dada go??" just makes it harder.

Aside from that I was making mental pro con lists. We've been talking about extending here...basically from day one. I'm the kind of girl who can't just settle for crossing bridges when she reaches them. I want a map and a plan and a back up plan and if at all possible some sort of harness just in case the bridge breaks.

It's not a decision we have to make today but sooner is better. It basically comes down to money vs family. There are other factors of course but those are the two big ones. Josh's salary essentially doubled when we came here. We could save up a sizeable chunk to start our "someday we'll buy a house" downpayment fund. But is it worth it to live sooo far away from all of our loved ones? Skype has been an amazing blessing but it's not enough and it's not like we expect our families to just throw down a grand on a plane ticket to come see us very often. If we request a full 3 year tour they will fly you home for a visit for free....but that's a big commitment.

Whatever. I really need to learn to compartmentalize and tune out all the crap in my head.

I just bought Josh the only surprise Christmas present he'll be getting...now I just have to hope he can't figure it out when he picks up the box at the post office.

I'm a grown up.

Sometimes the best part of adulthood is that I can do what I want. Like put our Christmas tree up before Thanksgiving. I wasn't planning on it, but I had brought everything out to reassess what we have and what needs to be replaced. Then somehow it just ended up all put together and lit up.
Our tree is hilarious. It was $20 at Walmart last year and it looks like it. But it's small enough that it would have fit in any of the varied apartments we've lived in so we'll keep her around for awhile longer. We must have thrown out our tree topper last year or forgotten to pack it.....and the options on base were slim.
I don't like red, green and gold. It's just not my style. Unfortunately whoever does the buying for the stores here is a big fan of that color scheme. This was literally the only silver topper available. It's so TACKY. So overly tacky that it's almost kitschy.



We are adding three new ornaments to our tree this year. The first is this plaster ornament made to look like an origami dragon. I wanted a crane, but the dragon was more impressive in person.

And a special appearance by Bella and Edward. I can't help but smile when I see them dangling from the tree. They're pretty detailed up close.

Thomas was a must for the tree. I keep him at the very top because my Thomas sees no reason why he can't play with ornament Thomas. Nevermind the 20+ trains he has already.


Ta-da! The final product. She looks a little sparse, like we put her on a diet or something. Part of me wants to fill her up and the other part says it will be fun to watch our tree fill up as the years pass by.


I've been picking out cookie recipes, because while I can't cook to save my life, I can bake very well. Our stockings are waiting to be hung as well as the advent calendar from my childhood. We also have our elf on the shelf hiding away for his Thanksgiving day appearance.

I can't wait.

The neighborhood and paint on my pants.

It's not an ocean view, but it's ours and it's home. These are from our bedroom balconies.




Meanwhile at my feet T was painting his choo choo picture. He was very focused on the task.


I however was not focused....and went out in public like this. Josh "didn't notice" until we were home.

Perhaps it's hypocritical of me...but I sincerely hope T never wears this for real. I don't know that my heart could take it.




But Josh makes it look good. Not that I'm a big fan of dress blues anyway, but it is nice to see him all fancy schmancy with his accomplishments dangling from his uniform.

I've only gone to one Marine Corp ball, we had our first kiss shortly after that ball. We were at our friend Joey's (one step away from being declared a natural disaster) apartment to change out of our formal gear and into after party outfits but Josh was being mopey. Then.....

Angel: What's wrong?
Josh: I'm just tired.
Angel: (Walks right over and plants a kiss on his lips) "Still tired?"
Josh: Nope


The end. Who knew we'd be married three months later?

My boys

I love them.


As a family, we're big fans of gorilla hugs. and fish kisses. and butterfly smooches.

Thomas is the only one who enjoys being held upside down though. He's silly.

Lessons learned.

1. Olive oil and vegetable oil are NOT interchangeable. I don't think I'll be getting a show on the Food Network anytime soon.

2. Always stir vigorously after you let your 2 year old stir for you....or you'll end up with visible egg white ribbons throughout your baked goods.

Does anyone want a piece of the world's worst banana bread??


3. You don't always get what you pay for. I've got a thing for perfume. I have quite a few and I wear it all the time. Josh could care less, but I buy a $10 Bath and Body works spray called Dark kiss and he notices it, mentions it and continues to sniff me. Who knew? Also, the ghetto rigged, double sided tape medal mounting I did, is still holding up and no one noticed at the ball. I'd like to believe it's because I'm amazing...but maybe they were just all distracted by the guy wearing a bunch of medals he didn't earn.

I get an F for preparedness.

So last night, the carbon monoxide detector beeped. I have a HUGE fear of carbon monoxide. I mean, I'm sure it's a calm way to go and all but I'm not really up for dying just yet.

PS. I googled carbon monoxide and the third result was how to kill myself. That's delightful eh?


Anyway, it beeped three times, so of course I ran to it to look at it. The light that is normally green was red. Uh oh. I assumed it meant a battery issue but it's plugged in. Does it have a backup battery pack? I don't know. I can't open it up. There are no screws, there are however two arrows, one pointing north and one pointing east...so that does me no good. I unplugged it and replugged it. No change. So I stayed up for a few extra hours to make sure I didn't start feeling any of the symptoms I learned about in my previous google search. I didn't so I opened all the windows and turned on all the fans and went to bed. I still didn't sleep very well what with my need to have a hand on T's stomach all night.

I think we need to see if they sell these monitors at the BX, you know, ones with English instruction manuals. That would be handy.

I should also really look up how to call 911. And how to use our escape hatches. And keep my phone charged.


Josh gets an F too by the way. He's going to the ball tonight with his medals held together with double sided tape and superglue. He's always mounted his medals himself, but because he has more this year they are supposed to overlap which means we should have had them professionally mounted. Oops. He'll probably get in some trouble for that oversight. I told him he has free reign to blame me somehow. I'm a good wife like that.


It's basically my only redeeming quality today. I'm going to go email our housing agency now to see if they can tell me what's wrong with our detector.

I love peanuts.

Happy Halloween! I've been slacking on my pimpin'. No blogging at all. We rearranged the furniture. Josh got a ($200) speeding ticket. I've wrapped a bunch of Christmas presents. That's the basic wrap up of our lives.




Anywho....T-man was a peanut for Halloween. We chose that costume because the price was right. He's 2. What does he care? I'm happy to report that we did not see one other peanut while trick or treating.

We T or T'ed three times. Saturday night on base at Kadena with a group from Josh's shop.

Saturday afternoon at the BX, where people gave him HANDFULLS of candy.
...and Saturday night on Foster base housing.


He filled his bucket 3 times, and this picture is of only one bucketful. He was very excited about that Ferroro Roche chocolate.



His version of "trick or treat" sounds like trrr trrr. He has been saying more and more words everyday. It's making me feel a lot better. I don't know if anyone else will understand him just yet but Josh and I both do and can now answer "What doin?" and "Wha is at?" 75 times a day.


Saturday is lets go take a crapton of pictures and hope we get at least 3 good ones for the Christmas card day. I'm excited.